Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Opportunity

I know I said I was taking a break, but I wanted to tell all of you about something that just happened. As I have been enjoying the accolades of a successful, Grand Rounds, I received the following e-mail below about an hour ago...

Hello-

I am contacting you as the editor of [insurance company program] Newsletter. We are an international provider of medical and managed care insurance. Our clients consist of health plans, managed care organizations and health insurance companies within the US and Canada. [Our company] is the nations foremost insurance based managed care consulting programs. We have been in operation since the 1980's.

[Our program] is designed to partner with our customers to control risk, reduce cost and more importantly support quality healthcare outcomes. Although, we offer a variety of services, one important component of our program is to provide research and educational opportunities. [Our newsletter] is one avenue in which we provide clients of [our company] with information on a wide variety of topics related to catastrophic medical case management. Case histories, facility highlights and similar articles are intended to serve general information not endorsements of facilities, programs or products of any kind.

In addition to submissions from each of our [company] physician consultants, I plan to include specialty clinical related articles from outside sources i.e. [our company's] consultant's or vendors that we may have a relationship with. It is my goal to rotate topics to meet the needs of our broad audience.

I am contacting you to request permission to include something from your blog entries. Something for variety for our clients. Although, I am not familiar with "blogging" after review of your blog entries, I am intrigued.

If this is something of interest to you, please let me know. In addition, if you have any specific topics or ideas for an article, I welcome your suggestions.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing back from you and have a Terrific Thanksgiving!

Regards, XYZ company

Now, I probably blew my whole deal with broadcasting this on my blog. But, I was curious to see what all of you thought. How does this letter read to you? Is this a potential venture that you personally would consider?

Personally, for me, I'm leaning no, at this point. Probably, they would want me to reveal all kinds of personal information (like my name, etc). How credible would their newsletter be if there was a quote from a "Doctor Anonymous" - probably not much. I'm not ready to come "from behind the curtain" yet (Wizard of Oz reference).

People have e-mailed me that they are curious about the relationship that I have with my readers. This is probably one of the reasons why. I'm curious what you think, no matter what it is....

I recently got an invitation to join Blogburst which would place some of my articles on sites where people view major newspapers, but I haven't decided just yet. I never replied to the woman who was looking to include my story about my neurologist and what I thought about doctors making apologies because I didn't want my doctors to read it on the website and then get angry with me for any negative things I said. I haven't decided on this blogburst thing yet, though! The person writing the email to me addressed it as "Dear Lizz" and while my email is LizzPiano, I think anyone who truly reads my blog knows that my name is Carrie, so I'm not sure if that means the guy just randomly hit on my blog and emailed me or if he actually read it and just had a mental slip when addressing me as Lizz. I love to go by the name Lizz and all of its forms, but still, I don't hide that my proper name is Carrie.

I think I'd just check around and maybe google the company a bit. The other day I was looking into taking an online typing job, and when I googled the company, I found out it was all a scam! Lucky I did that otherwise I would have been taken for a real ride!

Hugz,Carrie :)

P.S. Yesterday I had over 300 hits to my blog, and most of them were from your site. Someone also posted the link to my submission on some other website, so I got a few hits from there as well. This morning when I checked, I had already over 100 hits - almost all from you! Thanks!! I know 300 is nothing compared to your 1000+, but it's more than I've ever had!!

I just found your blog courtesy of your Medscape interview. I should probably read more of it before just jumping right in and posting but I'm all about immediate gratification and lack of impulse control at the moment.

I would not respond to this. I used to co-moderate a support board/group of fora for mental illnesses, meds etc... and I won't go into the details but we received trolls like this.

Also, it just sort of screamed, "Let us pimp you out!"...and such a cheery (form) letter from an insurance company? Yeah.

If you wish to get published, go for something a little more reputable.

Oh, and I just picked this name in quick, rather unoriginal random fashion so if someone else already has it, apologies--I'll change it.

Although, I am not familiar with "blogging" after review of your blog entries, I am intrigued.

This was my favorite line. That's like saying, "I'm looking to score some points at the next staff meeting. So, I'm going to take our newsletter (old media) into the 21st century by introducing our company into blogging (new media)."

I love old media vs. new media discussions. But, that's a post/rant for another day.

Actually, that's kind of funny that you say that because when I was first researching my "blog name," I typed in "anonymous." The blog name "anonymous lawyer" popped up and the blogger actually wrote a book called Anonymous Lawyer. So, maybe a book is not out of the question for me. Hehe.

Maybe I'm jaded but I wouldn't trust an insurance company as far as I could throw it. I think of insurance companies the same way I do used car salesmen (no offense to any here.) In fact, if I think about insurance companies too long I need an extra Toprol...

i maybe the oddball here, but i will speak from my experience. i have had a post published in one newsletter in minessota, and one on the way on a newsletter from ohio. i did get a copy of the paper from the first one, and requested a copy from that in ohio if it will push through. one of the things i asked is just to put the name of my website, and the name i use in it, but not my real name, which they know because they had to mail me a copy of the paper.

it did not increase traffic to my site, (because as you may already know, people who read paper based information rarely go and check the listed website) but if you are like me, who certainly gets a little kick in seeing my words published in any kind of paper, i say go for it, as long as you make sure they will not publish your real name.

"I love old media vs. new media discussions. But, that's a post/rant for another day."

My favorite thing in the whole universe is when old thinks it works like new (or tries to be what it thinks new is): the best example is when my local TV news broadcast (well, okay, CNN has done this, too) shows video of WEB SITES. On TV. Like you can read it. Or like I'd want to turn on the TV to have some moron plaster a web page on screen.

Sorry, tangent.

Don't your professional regulations address when / how you can write articles? Wouldn’t that shoot the whole anonymous thing down, and like you wondered, require you to disclose personal info? Regardless, sounds sketchy.

Okay, I'll vote for the book, also. My reasoning is that I think your intentions with this blog are pure. By pure I mean that you are providing a service without the intent of financial gain or notarity. In my opinion, if we stick with this - the purity of what I feel is simply sharing our stories and knowledge - then what we receive will be much greater than we could have ever desired.

Having written that my intention was to tell you Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for sharing, Dr. A.

No I do not have a blog as I've always thought that no one would ever want to bother reading it. There are so many out there that I felt I'd be basically talking to myself. Which is fine but I don't really require a computer to do that.

If I did (have a blog) however, it would largely consist of my wonderful multiple diagnoses and adventures from the neck up plus random musings of craziness.

And I guess my puny life. Which brings me back to the first point in paragraph #2.

When in (hypo)manic states I used to write like a fiend but now that I am medicated that has severely waned. No, more than that: I do not write at all.

I had dreams of being published somewhere...(?) or writing some grand novel--and no, I don't think this was grandiosity although in clearer moments looking back on some of what I wrote, it was pure garbage. But a lot of it was really good.

I keep thinking of lots of things I'd like to pursue but I feel my ADD keeps holding me back. I'm working on that...maybe stims would help. That's the next psych./neuro. issue on the table.

But maybe if we get to know each other better an interview may not be completely out of the question and hey, a blog of my own may not be completely without the realm of possibility either.

As for the opportunity...well, I do work for "the dark side of the force" and you would be surprised at how many intelligent, educated, computer literate persons who work there who have no clue what the blogosphere is like. They think of blogs only as for kids, and have no idea of all the medical blogs (to name only one type) there are.

Having said that, I guess I would, like starrlight, request more information, see if they will allow you to remain anonymous if you wish to do so, and consider it. Our company's newsletter often has articles about good and bad service from the company, doctors, hospitals, etc. I think some of your blog articles would be great reading. Of course, I may be prejudiced because I do enjoy your blog so much...